they must always have used the same entrance. In the Philoctetes, for example, Odysseus, Neoptolemus, and the chorus all come from the ship. If, therefore, the sailors entered by the orchestra, the two heroes must have done the same. But there is no necessity for such an assumption. It would be absurd to demand this minute accuracy in the representation of a play. Then there are cases where an actor on the stage sees another from a distance; but about ten lines intervene before the second actor comes near enough to enter into conversation with the first.[600] It is argued that he must have had a long way to go, and must therefore have come round by the parodos. But in all these places there is nothing to show that the person approaching was seen by the audience as soon as he was descried from the stage. He may have received his ‘cue’ some time after his advent was announced. It is common enough on the modern stage, when the scene is in the open air, for an actor’s approach to be announced some time before he actually appears. Also, there are several cases in the ancient dramas when an actor begins to converse with the people on the stage only two or three lines after he is first seen.[601] These passages might be cited to prove that he had only a short way to go, and must therefore have come in by the stage. But in reality all inferences of this kind are far too subtle to be of any value. We can hardly imagine the ancient dramatists counting the number of yards to be walked before they settled the number of verses to be spoken. Another set of instances are those in which a character, after coming into sight, takes a long time to reach the point he is aiming at. Euelpides and Peisthetaerus stumble about during the delivery of fifty-three lines before they reach the hoopoe’s dwelling-place. Dionysus and Xanthias converse for thirty-five lines before coming to the house of Hercules.[602] They too, it is said, must have entered by the orchestra, otherwise they would have reached their destination much sooner. But there is no need to suppose, in these and similar cases, that the characters were moving straight forward all the time. Any actors of ordinary experience would know how to arrange their progress in such a way as to come to the right place at the right moment. Lastly, there are scenes in which an actor, on making his entrance, fails to perceive at once another actor on the stage; or addresses the chorus before the actor; or is seen by the chorus before he is seen by the actor.[603] All this is said to prove that he must have come in by the parodos, and that the other actor was at first concealed from view by the intervening side-wings. But in the first place the ancient stage was so low and narrow that, as soon as an actor had fairly entered the orchestra, he could not fail to see the persons on the stage just as well as those in the orchestra. In the second place these arguments all depend on the same fallacy. They assume that in a dramatic